=================================================================
This FAQ has been created by Michael Martinez in accordance with
the prevailing traditions and customs of the Internet, which
place high value on the free dissemination and exchange of
information. This is a living document and as such may contain
errors or outdated information which I will eventually correct
or delete. Please let me know of any corrections or additions
you would like to see placed in the FAQ.
=================================================================
This FAQ is currently available at the following FTP sites:
ftp://ftp.dns.au.com/pub/hercfaq.txt
=================================================================
Table of Contents
=================
Section I. About The Usenet and alt.tv.hercules
1. What is the purpose of alt.tv.hercules?
2. What sort of stuff should I post to this news group?
3. What sort of stuff should I NOT post to this news group?
4. What happens if I post something I shouldn't?
5. Okay, but what if I want to post binary files SOMEPLACE?
6. What if I accidentally post something I don't want to?
7. What is Net Abuse and where can I learn more about it?
8. I've seen another Hercules group. Why are there two?
9. I read this FAQ on the Web (or by email) because I
don't get alt.tv.hercules. What can I do?
Section II. About HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS
1. What is HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS?
2. So who besides Kevin Sorbo stars in the show?
3. And who are the semi-regular actors?
4. Where in Hercules' life does the show take up?
5. The Iolaus of Greek myth was Hercules' nephew (the son
of Iphicles, in fact). Is the series' Iolaus related
to Herc?
6. Who, besides Iphicles and Alcmene, have we met of
Hercules' relatives?
7. There seem to be a lot of Centaurs in H:TLJ. Why?
8. How are the Centaurs done?
9. Is H:TLJ aimed toward a younger, less mature audience
than X:WP?
10. So what are the primary differences between H:TLJ
and X:WP?
11. What differences are there between H:TLJ and YOUNG
HERCULES?
12. Where is the show filmed?
13. Where is the show being broadcast?
14. Is it true that a network is looking at the series?
15. What do you know about the actresses who play the
Enforcers?
16. What is YOUNG HERCULES?
17. Which is really Herc's home town: Thebes or Corinth?
18. How close to the original stories does the series come?
19. Is Iolaus really dead?
Section III. About Kevin Sorbo's Movies
1. How many of the original Action Pack movies were there?
2. Other than Deianeira, did anyone else appear in the
movies who also appears in the series?
3. Is there any connection between the Action Pack movies
and earlier Hercules movies?
4. Where can I get the movies on tape?
5. Will the movies be shown on the USA Network?
6. I heard another movie was being made. Is this the
Disney movie?
7. What can you tell me about "Kull the Conqueror"?
8. What can you tell me about "Black Dog"?
Section IV. Personal Information About The Stars
1. Okay, what are the personal stats on Kevin?
2. And what about Michael Hurst?
3. Why is Kevin sometimes not in the show? Isn't
he the star?
4. I heard Kevin was in the hospital. What happened?
5. In some of the episodes Iolaus is wearing a splint.
Why?
6. Have there been other injuries?
7. Who is Kevin Sorbo's wife/girlfriend and why do people
talk about her so much?
8. What's this about Sorbo Park?
9. Are there any fan clubs?
Section V. Miscellaneous
1. You've made reference to XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS
several times. What's the exact connection?
2. What is Graegus?
3. Why do there appear to be so few fans of the
show on the Internet?
4. So where else do they hang out?
5. Is there any Fan Fiction out there?
6. Okay, what is XENA ONLINE RESOURCES?
7. Do I have to browse the entire site just to find
the Herc URLs?
8. Is this FAQ on the Web somewhere?
9. Are there any other FAQs I can look at?
10. Why isn't there a HERCULES ONLINE RESOURCES?
11. Why are there two young Hercules actors?
12. Who contributed to this document?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Section I. About The Usenet and alt.tv.hercules
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1. QUESTION
~~~~~~~~~~~
What is the purpose of alt.tv.hercules?
1. ANSWER
~~~~~~~~~
Here is the group's charter:
alt.tv.hercules is devoted to the discussion of the syndicated
television series HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS, its actors,
production staff, stories, and related topics including but not
necessarily limited to Greek history and mythology as used in the
series, etc. Discussion of conventions, fanfests, web sites, and
other fannish issues pertaining to the series are also appropriate
topics. Cross-posting with the sister group alt.tv.xena is
acceptable. Commercial advertisements not relating to sanctioned
merchandise pertaining to the show are off-topic.
Since the charter was written, the YOUNG HERCULES movie and series
have been created. It is considered appropriate to discuss either
of them, their actors, or production and scheduling issues in
the alt.tv.hercules group.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
2. QUESTION
~~~~~~~~~~~
What sort of stuff should I post to this news group?
2. ANSWER
~~~~~~~~~
Questions and answers about the show HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY
JOURNEYS, its stars, production staff, guest stars, and related
subjects.
It's also okay to post announcements for web sites, mailing
lists, fan clubs, etc. Basically, anything that would be of
interest to someone who wants to find out more about HERCULES:
THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS.
And, of course, you're welcome to express your opinions about
the show, its production, the actors, writers, etc. But please
be considerate of other people's feelings, views, and refrain
from initiating flames and trolls.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
3. QUESTION
~~~~~~~~~~~
What sort of stuff should I NOT post to this news group?
3. ANSWER
~~~~~~~~~
Off-topic articles are unwelcome but forgivable unless they
A. advocate illegal pyramid schemes (anything involving
lists of names and mailing money)
B. "reveal" cookie recipes from various department stores
C. ask people to send postcards to a dying boy (his
leukemia went into remission in 1983, but he also made
it into the Guinness Book of World Records with
33,000,000+ postcards; the Make-A-Wish Foundation in
Atlanta, GA now has a recording on their telephone line
asking you not to send any more postcards)
D. try to warn people about the "Good Times" Virus (it's a
hoax started on AOL in 1994) or any other email virus
E. try to warn people not to use a file called
PKZIP300.EXE. This bogus archive utility really WILL
destroy your hard-drive, but PKWARE sent out warnings
in 1995.
F. follow-up to any of these types of articles. It's not
necessary. See the information on how to deal with Net
Abuse in Question I.7 for more info.
The only other types of articles that are frowned upon
seriously are binary files (pictures). Contrary to popular
myth, the Usenet is NOT a complete and total anarchy. There
are rules which are adhered to on a voluntary basis by the
system administrators who run the machines that connect to
it. Often these rules are enforced via connection contracts
that stipulate what a "client" machine can and cannot send
to various news groups.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
4. QUESTION
~~~~~~~~~~~
What happens if I post something I shouldn't?
4. ANSWER
~~~~~~~~~
You may get flamed.
But if you post the pyramid scheme people will complain to your
Internet Service Provider (ISP), even if you try to fake your
account, and you may lose your account for that reason (but
that's between you and your provider).
Some unscrupulous people may mail-bomb you by sending your
article right back at you 1000 or 10,000 times. Or they may
subscribe you to many mailing lists, rendering your account
unusable. THESE ARE NOT PROPER RESPONSES TO USENET ABUSE, but
they happen and we cannot prevent people from declaring war on
you.
If you've read this far into the FAQ and you post one of the
above articles anyway, you're on your own and you'll get no
sympathy from the rest of us.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
5. QUESTION
~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, but what if I want to post binary files SOMEPLACE?
5. ANSWER
~~~~~~~~~
Hey, binary files are welcome on the Usenet! Just make sure you
post to a news group with the word "binaries" or "pictures" in
it. Then post an announcement here in alt.tv.hercules
telling us where to look.
The news group alt.binaries.multimedia.xena-herc was created
for fans of both HERCULES and XENA. If your ISP does not carry
it, you should be able to request that they do. You can also,
on many systems (and through many news readers) cross-post to
a non-local group if you post to a binaries group your ISP does
carry. You should pick something appropriate, such as
alt.binaries.misc or alt.binaries.pictures.celebrities.
It's okay to cross-post to several binary groups, especially if
their names are in the alt.* hierarchy, since no alt.* group is
guaranteed to be carried by all servers (in fact, NO news group
is guaranteed to be carried by all servers). In practice, it's
better to cross-post than to post to individual groups because
cross-posting saves space. Posting the same article to many
different groups is called "spamming" and is frowned upon.
But there is a better option available for sharing your maps and
pictures: the World Wide Web! Binary news groups have short
expiration periods because their articles take up so much disk
space. Web pages that you design and own have NO expiration
periods.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
6. QUESTION
~~~~~~~~~~~
What if I accidentally post something I don't want to?
6. ANSWER
~~~~~~~~~
Don't panic. Your news reader should have a CANCEL POST option
somewhere. Just RELOAD OLD ARTICLES or CHECK NEW ARTICLES
without leaving the news group in your reader. You should see
the article come up. Just select that article and then pick
CANCEL POST. Your news reader will send out a cancellation
advisory that may prevent your server from sending the article
out. The cancellation advisory will be propagated by your server
if your article has already been sent out, so chances are no one
will ever see the article if you cancel it quickly.
Compuserve users don't presently have this option.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
7. QUESTION
~~~~~~~~~~~
What is Net Abuse and where can I learn more about it?
7. ANSWER
~~~~~~~~~
Net Abuse refers to any of several generally disapproved
practices, including use of faked addresses (not screen names --
as long as email can reach you, screen names are okay), posting
the same article to multiple news groups (this is called "spam"),
cross-posting off-topic articles to multiple news groups, posting
crude and malicious articles (such as defaming Jesus in a
Christian news group, or telling C programmers that BASIC rules
-- these are called "trolls"), or posting the same article dozens
of times, etc.
It is common to see "fake" addresses on articles. As long as the
people posting the articles mind their manners otherwise, no one
really cares what they call themselves. But using a fake address
may be a violation of your ISP's guidelines and service
agreement. And if you try to hide behind a faked address in
order to flame someone, there are usually people who can track
you down from the information contained in the headers of your
articles, so you aren't likely to get away with anything.
The worst offenders are the trolls, the illegal pyramid schemes,
and heavily cross-posted off-topic articles. In some cases you
can complain to an offender's ISP and that service provider will
send out a cancellation message that kills the thread on all the
machines where it's propagated (well, most of them).
There is also a group of volunteer system administrators who
regularly browse news groups on a random basis and send out
cancellation advisories, usually just to remove binary files, but
also to get rid of "spam" articles. These folks will post an
advisory article telling the appropriate news groups what they
are doing and why. Their activities are accepted Usenet practice
and they come as close as anyone to being monitors for Usenet
traffic.
There is a FAQ on net abuse that discusses many aspects of good
and bad Usenet behavior. It also outlines accepted responses
used in handling abusive articles, and explains why other
practices (such as posting follow-up articles) are discouraged.
The FAQ is posted regularly to news.admin.net-abuse.misc and to
news.answers. The FAQ explains where and how to report net abuse
or suspected abuse.
The net abuse group maintains several FAQs. This FAQ is not
gauranteed to reflect the current views and information provided
in the net abuse FAQs. The reader is advised to retrieve the net
abuse FAQs for more current and detailed information on net
abuse.
A master HTML version of the net abuse FAQ may be found at:
http://www.cybernothing.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------
8. QUESTION
~~~~~~~~~~~
I've seen another Hercules group. Why are there two?
8. ANSWER
~~~~~~~~~
The original group was named alt.tv.hercules-legendary-journeys.
This group was rmgrouped -- its creation cancelled -- the day
after the original newgroup message was sent out. It never
really had a chance to survive because the name violates Usenet
naming conventions (no more than 14 characters in each section).
Also, the group was not originally proposed and discussed in
alt.config, where interested system administrators could see
a legitimate interest in the group.
A second, also poorly named group, was created but it never
received the propagation that the first group did. You'll
only find this other group on a very few servers. There
appears to be no traffic in it.
In November of 1996, after more than a year of frustration with
trying to use the old group, several people discussed creating
alt.tv.hercules in alt.config. The group was created in
December. The old group continued to exist on a number of
servers, though, and it will always continue to exist in a
few places even though a consistent effort has been made to
advise system administrators of the new group's existence.
People who have the ability to do so are asked to cross-post
between the two major Hercules groups whenever possible as
a courtesy to those people who don't have both groups on
their feeds. America Online Users do not have the ability
to honour cross-posts, so their portions of threads will
vanish from one group or the other.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
9. QUESTION
~~~~~~~~~~~
I read this FAQ on the Web (or by email) because I don't get
alt.tv.hercules. What can I do?
9. ANSWER
~~~~~~~~~
Point your Web browser to
<a href="http://www.xenite.org/usenet/at_herc.htm">
The alt.tv.hercules Information Page</a>.
You can read and post to the news group through several links
included on that page.
--------------------------END OF PART 1--------------------------
--
____ Julian Buczek|buczek@dns.au.com
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